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Raquel Garay lives just a few minutes walk from the U.S.-Mexico border, the line that has separated her from her family for more than two years. Since being deported from the U.S., where she lived for more than 40 years, in 2013, she lives alone in a country that feels foreign to her while her husband, children and grandchildren remain just a few hours away, across a border bridge she cant cross.

The story is familiar for many deported immigrants, potentially hundreds of thousands, who have been torn away from their families in the United States. Its what spurred President Barack Obama to pledge last year a smarter immigration policy that focuses on deporting felons, not families. While he has pushed executive action to shield those with strong family ties in the U.S., he has also touted an 80 percent increase in the number of immigrants with criminal convictions deported from the U.S. during his presidency.

That stirs conflicted feelings for Garay, who is a convicted felon who was removed from the U.S. for a deportable, although nonviolent, offense -- and also a mother, grandmother and wife of U.S. citizens who had barely recovered from two devastating medical traumas in the family before their lives were again upended by her deportation.

"Its affected all of us here, said Mario Jr., Raquels 24-year-old son. They separated a family.

Raquel, now 54, had lived in the United States since age 12 after her parents brought her over the border in the 1970s. Eventually she married Mario Garay, a U.S. citizen, got her green card and built a home and family with him in Grand Prairie, Texas.

But soon, the Garays discovered that their infant daughter Celia was having problems with her sight. After going from doctor to doctor, Celia eventually wasdiagnosed with retinoblastoma, a rare form of eye cancer. But the cancer already hadprogressed by the time the diagnosis came, and the Garays had to have both Celias eyes removed.

While Mario worked to support the family, Raquel ferried Celia to a slew of specialist visits and treatments while helping her navigate the world without sight. Eventually, Celias condition stabilized and Raquel enrolled her in a school for the blind. But years of stress and worry already hadtaken their toll, and during that time, Raquel said, she began to make mistakes.

I got into a lot of trouble in my relationship with my husband, with my drinking, she said. I was thinking of the future -- what was going to happen with my daughter? She was blind, and she was going to be blind forever.

In 1997 she was arrested for possession of a controlled substance: less than 3 grams of cocaine found in her car. She was convicted of a felony and deported in 2000.

I had a lot of anger and a lot of sadness, Raquel said. I was going through a lot of trauma with my daughter's cancer. Its something you never get over. But she acknowledges it was still a grave lapse of judgment on her part. I know I made a lot of mistakes, she said.

Excerpt from:
Immigration Reform: When Deporting Felons Breaks Families Apart